Mourners pack gym to remember slain Deputy Jacob Keltner

Wednesday

Mar 13, 2019 at 4:47 PMMar 13, 2019 at 5:57 PM

WOODSTOCK — “Six-21 from county. Six-21 from county. Six-21 from county. All units be advised. Six-21 Deputy Keltner’s not responding.”

Those words were spoken on Wednesday in the symbolic last radio call for a McHenry County sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty last week. Nearly a week after Deputy Jacob Keltner was shot outside a Rockford hotel, thousands of mourners and law enforcement officers from across the region and country attended his funeral Wednesday.

Keltner was shot in the head Thursday morning in the parking lot of the Extended Stay America hotel, 747 N. Bell School Road. He was pronounced dead a little more than six hours later.

“As a result, Deputy Keltner has ended his watch,” the dispatcher said during Keltner’s final radio call, a highly emotional tradition in funeral services for officers. “Your spirit and strength will live on through your family, both blood and blue. Deputy Jacob Keltner, thank you for your service and ultimate sacrifice. Rest in peace, brother. We will take it from here.”

The Rev. Kendall Koenig, senior pastor of Light of Christ Lutheran Church in Algonquin, who spoke during the funeral, chuckled when calling Keltner “the baby whisperer,” who magically could quiet crying babies and toddlers.

“Friends, we are not heroes because of how we die,” Koenig said. “We are heroes for how we live, and you have lived it,” Koenig said of Keltner.

Koenig said that when Keltner got home, he engaged with his sons, Caleb and Carson, and wife, Becki, “with a tender heart.”

As recently as the week before he died, he had built zip lines for his sons in the basement and had their toys “zipping all around” like Hot Wheels tracks in the air, he said.

First responders and police officers from across Illinois attended the funeral and subsequent procession from Woodstock North High School to a Huntley funeral home. Kane County Undersheriff Pat Gengler said 700 cars were in Keltner’s procession.

Rockford police Lt. Joel Givens was one of 45 to 50 Rockford officers who attended Keltner’s funeral. Chief Dan O’Shea and all of the assistant chiefs attended, as well as some lieutenants and sergeants.

“It hits home because it’s a fellow officer,” Givens said.

Keltner was a member of the U.S. Marshal’s Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force. They were at the hotel to serve arrest warrants on Floyd E. Brown, 39, of Springfield, who is accused of shooting through the door, jumping out of the window and shooting Keltner in the parking lot before fleeing. He later was caught downstate. Brown is due back in federal court on March 20 to face a murder charge that could make him eligible for the death penalty.

Kildeer police Patrol Officer Doug Beres said while he doesn’t know Keltner or his family, he felt compelled to attend his fellow officer’s funeral. “It’s to show support for the family and all the law enforcement officers here,” Beres said. “I have been in law enforcement for over 30 years. Any first responders are taking their lives on the line, but we’re here for a purpose. The purpose is to serve the public.

″(Brown) had several warrants for his arrest. He was a very violent person. They were thinking of the female in there — she wanted to get out,” Beres said. “Now we’ve lost a fellow officer because they were trying to take a violent felon off the streets.”

Mourners packed the main gym at Woodstock North High School, with some overflowing into an auxiliary gym. School district spokesman Kevin Lyons said the main gym’s capacity is about 3,000 people. Members of the media were not allowed in the gym or auxiliary gym during the funeral.

Downers Grove police Officer Brian Mitera said he drove about 1 1/2 hours to attend Keltner’s funeral, even though he didn’t know him.

“It’s important to me ... so the officers who have given the ultimate sacrifice are remembered as the heroes they are,” he said.

Nationwide, Keltner’s death on March 7 marked the 24th law enforcement fatality in the line of duty this year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. By the same time last year, 30 law enforcement officers had died in the line of duty nationwide.

Mitera had a message for Keltner’s wife and two sons: “Thank you. Thank you for allowing him to protect and serve and keep the citizens safe.”

Wearing a Harley-Davidson patch on his black motorcycle jacket, McHenry Township clerk Dan Aylward, a member of the Warriors’ Watch Riders, expressed his sympathy for Keltner’s family, saying his own father was a Chicago police officer, his son-in-law was a police officer in North Carolina, and other relatives were in law enforcement.

“There is no closure. That’s something they’re never going to get over,” Aylward said. “You just get up in the morning and splash water on your face and face another day and go on with it.”

He said he’s praying for Keltner’s family.

“I wish there was something I could do,” Aylward said. “Unfortunately, there isn’t. Just prayer and knowing that some day you’ll see him again.”

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